Transcript
Gissele overdub: [00:00:00] hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content.
Gissele: on today’s podcast, we’ll be talking about treating our mother wounds. And our next guest is Geraldine Crane. She’s a serene spiritual empowerment guide. She works with women who have had toxic or difficult relationships with their mothers, helping them to stop people pleasing, stop putting themselves last, and start loving and honoring themselves.
And in doing so, have a happier, healthier relationship with those they love. She uses spiritual hypnotherapy, coaching,
and
inner child therapy to help them reconnect with their true selves and the power they have within them. Previously, Geraldine worked as a probation officer, substance [00:01:00] misuse worker, and domestic abuse recovery worker. But after realizing That her own relationship with her mother was toxic. She took that very difficult step of cutting contact with her and going on a healing journey, which led her to this work, which she feels so passionately about.
Join me in welcoming Geraldine. Hi, Geraldine.
Geraldine: Hi, thank you. I love hearing you say my stuff. It sounds so good.
Gissele: Definitely. Can you give us a little bit more about your story in terms of how you shifted from being a probation officer or substance abuse officers to the work that you’re doing now?
Geraldine: Yeah,
it’s quite a long story to be fair. It’s been quite a little while since I worked as a probation officer. That was my first kind of serious job out of, you know, finishing university and things. But. It was, as I, probation got very difficult the funding went and it was all messed around with by our government.
[00:02:00] So, I left the probation service and started working with domestic violence victims. And the reason I got really interested in that is actually, for a short period I worked in a crisis team with substance misuse. And I helped a couple of women flee from violent relationships. One particular woman was very inspiring.
She was Bengali, didn’t speak English. Her husband was using substances had been thrown out by his family. We’d got him accommodation, managed to get her into the accommodation with him because it sounded like she was being used as a slave. And when we got them out, I was really concerned about her because she didn’t speak any English.
So I got her a peer support, somebody who could speak the language and give her a bit of support. Through them, we found out it was a violent relationship and, and she was amazing, so I would go and visit her. And in front of him, she’d act all timid. The minute he was out of the room, she was like, get me out of here.
It was amazing. I just love this woman. And I [00:03:00] ended up having to hide in the back of a taxi and go and get her out and just take her to go and get support. And it was really funny that day when I finished work, I lived over the other side of London at the time, and I got on the tube, got on my train.
It takes an hour and a half for me to get home, got off my train and she comes walking down the road in the other direction with somebody from a hostel. She’d obviously been placed near to where I live and she just came running up to me and gave me the biggest hug. And it was, she just went, thank you.
She couldn’t speak much English, but she just said, thank you. And I think she was, she was the step that got me, this is what I want to do. This is where I want to be. And I’d done a lot of work in probation, working with domestic violence perpetrators, And, and starting to understand it from that perspective.
But when I moved into working with the victims, I just loved it. Loved them. Women are incredible. Any woman who’s a victim of domestic violence and thinks she’s weak, it’s most likely exactly the opposite. The women were incredible, [00:04:00] but one of the exercises we did with these women to help them to understand how bad the abuse was so that they could understand why they felt so awful, even though now they were safe, was to go through what’s called the Duluth Power and Control Wheel, which goes through all the different kinds of abuse there are, not just physical and sexual.
So much more, the more subtle ones, psychological intimidation, isolation, those kinds of things. And as I started going through these and the more subtle underlying coercive behaviors, I was suddenly like, Oh, these are really, really familiar. And I was very unlucky at the time that I worked for somebody who just said, no, no, no, no, she’s your mother.
She loves you. Which coming from somebody who worked in a domestic violence charity was yeah. But I started after having my own children, which does bring things to the fore, you start thinking I wouldn’t do this to them. [00:05:00] But also I started seeing a counselor. I’d struggled to breastfeed and was starting to get a little bit depressed.
So I went and saw a counselor and she just said to me, do you realize that. You talk a lot about your mum. This is about your mum. And she gradually was also getting me to look in that direction. So it was like that perfect storm of having my own children, having the right counselling. And she really was brilliant.
And having, the training. And it was through that, that I started to realise things were really wrong. And then. And there was one particular day she just said to me, look, you just keep giving me excuses for her. You just keep, you know, defending her and really you, you should be furious. Like, why are you not furious with her?
And that really hit home. And, and I remember coming home and just sitting in the middle of my lounge floor, my sitting room floor, and just the room span and suddenly my world flips upside [00:06:00] down. I realized the reality my mother had put into my mind was not true. That I’ve been brainwashed. And it’s Everything just turned upside down and it really took me a while, but it was, I wasn’t ready to cut contact at that point.
It was when I then lost my job working at this charity with these women, that I started to get really severe anxiety again. And it’s, and it. It’s something I’ve been suffering with since I was very young, always assumed it was because I’d become my mother’s carer when I was only 12 for her physical and mental needs.
And I’d always assumed that was, it’s just the pressure of being a carer. But through this counseling had started to realize, no, it was actually the enmeshment and the codependency and the heavy weight of that relationship. Being her confidant, she would tell me every time she felt depressed, if she was suicidal, she would tell me about her experiences of sexual abuse in detail when I was only 12.
Because I [00:07:00] was her confidant, I was her safe space. You know, when her moods, when her moods really went low, nobody else could look after but me. And that was a lot to carry and I hadn’t realized
Gissele: that. For a 12 year old, yeah. Yeah. Even for somebody who’s older, like caregiving can actually be a lot.
Geraldine: Yeah, it’s a lot for anyone to carry, yeah.
And so by 19, I had my first breakdown and hadn’t, and, but she was constantly saying to me, well, it’s because you’ve, you’ve been my carer and nobody else has been helping. We’re the victim. We’re the victim. And it, it took this counselor to really start turning that around. So when this anxiety then, skyrocketed again, because I’d lost what I thought was my dream job at the time. I went back to see this counselor and again, she was like, come on, we know where this is really coming from. It’s not just this job. You would be able to cope with it if it wasn’t for this. And she just said, but what would, what would life look like without her in it?
Nobody had ever given me permission to [00:08:00] even consider that before. And very rarely do people when it’s your mom, but it’s exactly what I needed to hear. And my first response was no, no, no, I can’t do that. I love her. I can’t do that. But she was like, but something needs to change. So we have to get more boundaries in what, what do you need right now?
And so we agreed that I would go home and talk to her because Christmas was coming up. She was going to be in my house with my mother in law and they didn’t get on. Partly because my mother in law was so protective of me, actually. Mm, which is
Gissele: lovely, yeah.
Geraldine: Yeah, and so I just thought, well, out of all the people I can ask not to come, I should be able to ask my own mum.
You know, she’d been with us last year, my mother in law hadn’t, you know, I’m going to ask her not to come for Christmas, there was other options. But when I did, oh my lord.
Gissele: Oh yeah, I can imagine.
Geraldine: Yeah, there was shouting, screaming accusations, you know, you’re just trying to get me to do [00:09:00] this, that and the other, you know, you don’t care about me.
There was not one hint of, you’re not coping right now, I’m going to do what you need. There was not.
Gissele: Well, you’d always been the caregiver, right? And so if the situation was reversed at that moment, you were expecting her to give you something. And that might’ve been really challenging for you.
Geraldine: Yeah. And it was even with other members of the family, if people, you know, if I was the one that came last.
I was the caregiver for everybody so I can last and it just, I’m really glad she did respond that way though, because it made me realize I cannot get well with this relationship in my life. Like, I can’t do this. It felt like I was swimming in poison and I had to get out. Yeah. And I’m not saying that she’s poison.
It was the relationship was poison for me. For
Gissele: sure. For sure.
Geraldine: And that’s, I, I sent her a text message afterwards, which sounds really harsh, but I was terrified. And this is what people can’t get. [00:10:00] You don’t cut contact because it’s the first and easy option. You cut contact because it’s the last option. And usually by this point you’re terrified.
And you just don’t know what else to do because you’re just going around in circles. So I text her and said, I’m very sorry it’s come to this, but I, I, I can’t get well with this relationship and I need you to stay away from me and my family. I did question whether she should have contact with my kids, but my husband was just like, no.
I don’t, and you have to think if she’s not safe to be with you, she’s not safe to be with your children. And especially when you’ve got somebody who’s maybe covert narcissist, emotionally immature, they’re gonna use that relationship.
Gissele: So what was their response?
Geraldine: I can imagine. Well, I didn’t really give her a chance to have one because I blocked her.
I completely deleted because we’d have these arguments over WhatsApp with each other [00:11:00] really long. Like, oh, when I think back about it, it awful, but I just, I thought she’s going to use this against me. I deleted a lot. I blocked her. I deleted a lot. I blocked her from my email. The only way she was going to be able to contact me was to turn up at my door, which she could have done.
And I was terrified of for a long time. Or write to me and she never did any of that. She’s never made, the only time I have seen her was at my grandmother’s funeral. And we didn’t talk. We stayed in very different sections. Bless my grandmother, even before she died, was like, you make sure Geraldine doesn’t need to go near her.
You look after, she really had my back, bless her. Even in dying in hospital, she’s saying, make sure Geraldine knows when her mom’s coming in because I don’t want to see her. So yeah, so it’s a long story. Sorry. But yeah, so one, once, once I cut contact. Every emotion comes up, [00:12:00] every emotion you can imagine.
And it, and I needed time to heal. So I continued seeing the counselor for a while. And when I started feeling strong enough, I then went and trained as a hypnotherapist. And training as a hypnotherapist really reconnected me to my spiritual side. It had never gone away because when I was 19, I joined a spiritual development circle and learned that I had a particular ability to connect with spirit guides.
And those spirit guides, my God, they really support me through this whole process. And I’d really started plugging into them through the process. And then through the hypnotherapy, that connection just got stronger because you go to a certain frequency that just makes it easier. And they, they were amazing at just saying, you’ve done the right thing.
We’ve got your back. You need to stay away right now. And, but through that, so when I started up my own business, at first I was just, I’ll just help people with toxic relationships, just a clinical hypnotherapy. Then lockdown came [00:13:00] and I let my business go quiet. I wanted to focus on my children, but I knew to keep them well, I had to keep me well.
Yeah. So I meditated for two hours or I read, or you know, I did. I did a lot of self-development. I did some self hypnosis in a child, work on myself and. Again, connection with spirit got stronger. So I started sharing messages cause they were giving me loads of messages of reassurance. So I started sharing these online and it was my like coming out.
Like I am spiritual. I’m coming at people who knew me personally knew it, but professionally I haven’t. And the response was fantastic. So once I started being able to do my business again, I started meditating before seeing clients and I was channeling scripts for people and get really clear messages.
And that’s when my serene spiritual way of using hypnotherapy and coaching kind of developed. It was all guided by spirit, but also bringing in all my skills from hypnotherapy, [00:14:00] probation, substance abuse, all those. Skills that I’ve had professionally all brings it together and I’ve developed a serene way of working with people where I take them through stillness, emotions, reconnection, energy, now, and empowerment.
And I don’t always do it in that order. It depends on But we always go through that stuff and I’ve even, you know, developed a program now to help people do this online as well. So yeah. Well, that’s
Gissele overdub: wonderful. Thank you for sharing your story with us. It definitely, when I reflect on my life and I reflect on the people that I know, definitely the mother wound seems to be the one that seems to be the most impactful.
And it’s interesting how it plays out, right? And when I hear some of the historical things, some of the same themes come up that you were mentioning that the, the, downloading or dumping, like the emotional stress on the children. Yeah, like the rehashing, [00:15:00] the retelling stories, the, and it’s a form of creating trauma, traumatizing the children by just keep repeating it.
And so, but it’s, it’s. Difficult for a child to be able to put those kinds of boundaries. So it’s, I think as an adult, you start to realize, Hey, I have more power in this relationship that I’ve given myself. Well, that’s the
Geraldine: thing. It’s not up to the child to put those boundaries in place. It’s not the child’s responsibility.
A child can’t say, no, no, no, I’m not listening. You know, and it really can cause passive trauma because my mom shared with me details of her sexual abuse. It’s caused problems for me, a deep fear. I have a deep fear of something like that happening. I can’t watch scenes or read bits and books like that. It really shakes me up.
It triggers me massively and I’ve never experienced anything directly, but the, but the passive trauma is there.
Gissele overdub: Yeah, I remember my sister and I were talking about, she was reading this book and it [00:16:00] was talking about how, you know, when you’re raised by traumatized people, sometimes they use the same strategies that they use to survive, you know, they teach you those same strategies.
So even though it might not have happened to you, you’re still carrying that same, those same lessons, which is, is interesting. And you know, you talk about you know, Parents being able to not understand boundaries, right? There is that boundary, violation, if you may, right? And so, but I think when you get, when you become an adult, then you start to realize, Hey, maybe some of the stuff I was raised with, maybe not so okay.
Right? Like, when you start to expand your world, you start to realize. And so I think one of the most. Sometimes compassionate things we can do is to give ourselves space from our parents or to whether it be cutting off contact or creating some sort [00:17:00] of distance or even taking minor breaks if you’re caregiving, but sometimes often it’s sometimes the child’s happiness, even as an adult can sometimes be tied to To their parents and how they’re doing, and it’s still interesting how our parents can have that power over us, right?
Which we give them still. Right? And so that’s,
Geraldine: that’s really interesting. It’s written into your DNA to love and need your parents. It’s there and there’s nothing you can do about it. There’s a wonderful book that’s come out quite recently called Mother Hunger. And I think that really can explain it because, I mean, that’s not about particularly toxic.
Mothers, it’s, it’s about anybody who’s lost a mother because they’ve passed, you know, were adopted, but also had a neglectful or, or harmful mother, that you can still have that real panging and need to be mothered and nurtured. She talks about. [00:18:00] Nurturing, protection and guidance being those essential things that you need from a mother.
And if you don’t get them, it can cause this mother hunger later on in life. It can cause mother wounds as people talk about and it’s. It’s being really aware of those and what I find really helpful when I’m working with people. I don’t focus too much on mom. I focus more on, on them. Yeah. And there are people who are experts that can really help you to understand why mom behaved that way.
And you can, you can deep dive into that stuff. I find it’s good to know a little bit because it allows you to see that it’s not your fault. Because as children, we assume, especially when you’re little, you, you’re. Your brain is designed to make you think everything’s about me. Because the brain is, it’s egoic like that when it’s little.
It’s meant to be. It’s part of its development. So if something’s wrong, if something’s wrong with mom. It’s, it’s my fault and that’s [00:19:00] natural, but it’s starting to realize if you can just get some understanding of, of, of why maybe she’s emotionally mature, maybe narcissistic, maybe could be all sorts of reasons.
I feel most, most of it’s fear based at the end of the day. Yeah. It’s all fear. Yeah. Yeah. But it’s. But I also don’t think it’s good just to deep dive into that too much. Yeah, agreed. The focus is better to be on yourself because you can’t change her. Yeah. Doesn’t matter how much insight you get and wisdom you get about why she is the way she is, you’re not going to change her because only she can do
Gissele: that.
Agreed, absolutely. I think one of the biggest things that I learned in my journey is that I could actually be that for myself. I could be that parent. I was seeking. I could give myself the love I was seeking. I could give myself the attention I was seeking. And so that I didn’t need it from the outside.
And, you know, there was, there was a lot of forgiveness for myself as well [00:20:00] for some of the things that I thought were my fault that weren’t. , and as I started to forgive myself. I started to be able to forgive my parents more and maybe understand their journey more so I can, I can, because before that I could rationally understand it.
I knew both my parents stories. And if you look at their stories, you see a history of like trauma that’s just been passed down. But I think there was always an element of me that was, that felt hurt, that felt unseen, that felt devalued, but as I started to give it to myself, I felt that release of needing them to be anything other than they are.
And then I could forgive more. I could, appreciate more. What role has forgiveness, at least for yourself, , played in your life? For me,
Geraldine: I always think that you have to start with [00:21:00] acceptance first, and forgiveness comes. I think trying to make yourself forgiveness is not gonna work. Mm-Hmm. , like you said.
I think perfect example there is when you start loving and honouring and taking care of you and doing the healing work and being who you need to be for yourself, the it comes and, and it’s Don’t I try and get my clients not to focus on it too much because it will come naturally in time. And what tends to happen is when people, well, I need to forgive, they start punishing themselves all over again.
So instead I get them to focus on, we have to accept your mom is who she is and the way she behaves. You have to accept that you can’t change that.
So, I try and get them to focus more on acceptance and that’s accepting that their mother is the way she is.
She behaves the way she is and that’s not. going to change and if they hold on and wait for that, they’re just going to cause themselves more pain. They have to accept what’s happened. [00:22:00] Sometimes they just want to, you know, try and change, you can’t change the past. That’s not going to happen. But also accept that you’re not responsible for what happened to you, but you are responsible for healing your wounds and that, and not responsible for passing it on.
You know, that’s what you are responsible for. But once you start doing that work of really accepting and then accepting that you are worthy of happiness, you are worthy of peace, you are worthy of love, that you have a right to all those things and do whatever you need to do to get that, and it is different for everybody.
You have a right to feel the emotions. You feel that they are valid. Then you start going on that healing journey and forgiveness of yourself just come. You start to realize, okay there’s reasons I did some of the stuff I did, or I said the stuff I did, or I actually have good reason to need a break, to need firm boundaries with my mom, or to [00:23:00] need not to have contact.
And I agree with you, once you get on that journey of really loving and honoring yourself, the forgiveness will come naturally. And I just would never try and force it. Yeah. It won’t work. And also it comes in layers. I’ve been able to forgive my mum on a certain layer and then as I go healing a little bit deeper, something else comes out and I have to forgive again.
But it’s It’s not something I have to force, it just kind of, it just comes as I do the work and I also find the more and more I connect with my, what I call my inner divinity, is that part of you that’s connected to a universal divine loving energy, whatever you want to call it, I’m happy with that, but just the more and more I connect with that peaceful stillness, Inside me that’s connected to that, the more I’m able to get more compassion, more understanding, more, and it just, it makes that journey so much easier.
[00:24:00] And that’s why it’s such an important part of the work. When I’m helping people heal mother wounds, there is always a spiritual element because I find it, it helps. It’s what’s brought me the most peace.
Gissele overdub: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. I completely agree with what you said. And forgiveness doesn’t mean that you get into contact back with somebody again.
It doesn’t have to mean that. It just means that how you feel about the experience is changes and how you feel about yourself. You know, you raised something as you were talking, something kind of popped into my head, which was, you know, Allow yourself to live your dreams. You deserve it. You’re worthy. And one of the things that I used to have in the past before was there was an element of me that felt, well, my parents felt that they never left their dreams.
They never felt that they could do it. And neither did their parents and so on. There was almost an element of guilt to living my dream because they [00:25:00] didn’t, and why me and not them, but it’s so strange how we do that, but now I realize that whether they live our dreams or not is their choice. They get to choose to change themselves, they get to choose to live their dreams or not, and I don’t believe this is our only life, so if they don’t get it right this time, they get to come back and do it all over again.
And so it’s sort of allowed me to soften up and to be able to really be open and say, yes, I can live my dreams. I deserve it. I’m worth it. Do you often see people that carry that guilt on around living their dreams? Because maybe their predecessors have not been able to or don’t.
Geraldine: I mean, and it’s something I definitely recognize funny, actually just, I have hypnotherapy myself.
I think every good therapist should have therapy. And, and actually that’s what was coming up for me. Was some resistance to success and some of it was coming from guilt. And I [00:26:00] particularly remembered my, my mom coming to see me when we moved into the house and we’ve got this big, beautiful house we managed to buy because we had a flat in London and if you know anything about London, that the housing’s crazy and we managed to buy these big, beautiful house.
I was married to a really, my husband is a gorgeous, gorgeous human being, two beautiful kids, and my mum kind of came over and just, well, well, I had all that and I lost a lot, you know, your husband, you know, your father left me and I lost the house and it was just like, oh, and I, and I did carry this guilt of people coming around to the house and just like, well, how, what right do I have to own such a big, beautiful house, you know, and this real guilt around having stuff.
And, and like, I’m very lucky this, this is a garden room that I’m working from and still comes up like, Oh, but my, my husband’s worked really hard for it. And no,
Gissele overdub: you have to justify, but you don’t. And that’s the thing is. People put their own limiting beliefs on other people, right? So they said, well, you know, [00:27:00] I didn’t get to keep it for whatever reasons.
I, I lined out of it or what didn’t think I was worth it or whatever. And they tend to put that, I’ve seen that with people, like how they come, especially the older generation. Sometimes they’ll come in there sort of envy their children, or they’re sort of like, I haven’t personally experienced that. I find my parents are.
Fully in support of all my in my dreams. So I’m grateful for that. But I’ve seen other people in my life where there’s that interaction. And I kind of, you know, observe it kind of with curiosity and say, that’s interesting. I think of my children, I think of I want them to have more than me. I want them to be better than me.
IYou know what I mean? Like to see them to really flourish, but that dynamic between people where. They don’t want their children to excel or be it’s, it’s, I think there’s an element of shame and guilt in there, not maybe being able to fulfill their dream, but it’s interesting to watch because then, like you said, our job is not allow that.
To impact us, our [00:28:00] jobs, not allowed to give away our power to other people to determine what our capacity is. But, but it is amazing how we do that. And it’s not always just even with parents to with other people to people think, oh, I have to kind of diminish my light because of these. People in whatever, but because that’s what we’re taught, right?
We shouldn’t be, you should brag, you should be humble. You should be all of these things.
Geraldine: And trust me, you’re British. That’s
Gissele overdub: not right. British though. Yes. But yeah, like I’m British is very proper. So yeah. So, so then, so you’re taught these things that, but it’s when, as I was kind of healing those aspects, I realized it’s the other way around.
The more you shine your light, the way people go, Hey. I like that. I can do that too. There’s nothing different between me and Geraldine. If she lives her dream, then it’s, it’s a beacon for me to know that I can too.
Geraldine: So you’re taking me straight to a tool or a metaphor I use a lot with my clients.
Because one thing, one thing my clients tend to [00:29:00] do, most of the women I work with are highly sensitive and have I mean, at some point in their relationship with their mother or in other relationships being put in far too much responsibility. And so feel this responsibility to fix things for everybody else and feel the pain, especially with everything that’s going on in the world right now.
It can feel very heavy for the women I work with. They feel this deep responsibility to do something and almost. They will rub salt in their own wounds by watching the news and crying over, you know, seeing what’s happening in various parts of the world. And they’re heartbreaking in too. So I have to say to them, one, you’re not serving anybody else by, by drowning in other people’s souls.
You’re not helping them. You’re not serving anybody
Gissele overdub: by doing, you’re only contributing more suffering to the issue. You’re only contributing your suffering to that and adding more of
Geraldine: that. You’re just bringing down the consciousness, the energy of the world. Yeah. So I always say to them, be the lighthouse.
Yeah. Be the [00:30:00] lighthouse. Make sure that you have those firm base, that grounding, knowing who you are, have that really firm grounding in who you’ve got around you as well, that you are, you’ve got people around you who cheer you on, who know who you are, who support you in being. And then make sure that you’ve got really firm boundaries, that the walls of your lighthouse are not cracked.
You’re not letting any energies in that you should not be allowing in. And then you make sure that there’s all the energy running through so that your light shines really bright, because what happens then is your light from your lighthouse will guide other people. But what I find a lot of the women I work with and I have done myself is you start trying to get into everybody else’s boats and steer them the way you think they should go.
Well, one, your light is going to dim because your energy is too far spread and that’s no longer helping anyone. [00:31:00] But two, you’re likely to steer them in the wrong direction because that’s their boat and they need. To do their learning, they need to find their journey and you cannot, and I made that mistake a lot, thinking I knew what was best for people and I now know, shut up, let them get on with it and focus on me shining my light and getting as bright as I can so other people can find their own way home.
You will find that some people, when you start shining, don’t like it. That’s just a clear signal of who you need boundaries with. If they don’t like it, it’s, it’ll be triggering something in them. And that’s, but that’s. Not for you to worry about it just found boundary in that place, you know,
Gissele overdub: yeah, like you can, you can do a loving boundary.
It’s interesting. So when those situations happen and I’m shining my light and it’s triggering someone else, if it triggers a response in me, their [00:32:00] response, I know there’s something to heal for myself. Like so if I, if I’m being triggered by their trigger, then I’m like, okay, this is me. What’s good, because when it’s not about me, I’m able to observe that behavior and go, oh, that’s interesting.
Okay, like that, it doesn’t take anything away from me. This is their response. And when I decide to look at the people, not as a. Person like this person, I’m seeing you right now as a Geraldine, but it’s the divinity that you are. Exactly. You are not less than me. You’re not more than me. You, we were all just kind of the same energy juice essence, right?
And so you’re just going through your journey and the level of awareness that you have and whatever. So as I go on my journey and it’s really stepping up into my own power, I have less desire to really try to. fix or help or do other people. [00:33:00] But that’s been a kind of a mind shift for me because, because then I had to get to the point where I was like, if I’m not that, then who am I?
Because before I used to derive all my value from helping, right? Like, Oh, look at this helper, I’m saving with people. This is what makes me a good person. Yeah, it’s what makes me valuable. What makes me worthy. So one time I really had to wait because when things weren’t working out for me, there was a time when like things were just not flowing.
And I know I have things like, Oh, here I’m bringing loving, compassion to the world. And people are like crickets. And then I, I really had to, I really had to ask myself. If I don’t do anything in the world and don’t contribute anything in the world, nothing. If I just don’t do anything, I could be at home.
You imagine you meditated with myself, am I still going to be able to love and accept myself? And I had to really think about that. And I said, yes. Right. Even if I don’t accomplish anything in the world, I’m still worthy. I’m still lovable. I’m still valuable. I don’t have to earn my own love, [00:34:00] but that took a minute because we’re so caught up in Like you said, we want to fix things.
We’re taught to do things, to move things forward, to, to be of value, to be of service, especially if you’re used to, if it’s part of your identity, it’s, and it’s, it’s, if you were the responsible one, because that was the thing that kept coming up for me. Responsibility, responsibility, responsibility, when I was going through this journey of leaving my workplace and starting all of these things that I’m doing now And it was like, Oh my God, like I can’t, I’m not being responsible.
And so shifting that has been sort of interesting. What has been kind of your biggest mindset shift when you think back about where you are
Geraldine: and where you are now? I think it’s a really similar one. I’m just, one of the biggest things that tends to come up with myself and my clients is attaching your worth to your usefulness.
And [00:35:00] it’s something that when I work with spirit and spirit guides, they bring me time and time and time again, that there is nothing you need to do, be or have to have worth. You simply. You are a part of this universe. You are part of this loving energy and, and that is just beautiful. Bang, nothing, nothing more.
Like you say, you could sit in a room and do nothing, but you can be contributing to the consciousness of the world by simply sitting in a. Empty room and just having nice thoughts and sending them out, that’s powerful. So it’s, yeah, it’s a big thing that I work with my clients on, and it’s certainly been something I’ve had to really work on with myself.
And it comes up a lot when you run your own business. So being able to charge. And I, I very lucky I work with I have support around me with my business and I have a business consultant who’s always saying to me, stop trying to give [00:36:00] so much. You don’t, you’re over giving again and it’s because I want to, I want to help, I want to serve.
I’ve had to learn, like I now have a work mobile phone and a home mobile phone because I need to turn it off. To be able to serve right now. Yeah, I will get people texting me in crisis. In the middle of the night or, you know, and, and yes, they shouldn’t be doing that, but I work with people all over the world.
So sometimes they just don’t realize, you know, I’ve had, I’ve had it a couple of times where somebody sent me 30 voicemails. Just like, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. So I need to be able to switch that off. And it is, it’s learning those boundaries and it has taken time. I had somebody message me the day before my mother in law’s funeral.
But I was able to say, I’m really sorry, I can’t help you now. But I have this group, you know, you’re in that free group on Facebook. Go and talk to them and I promise you, you will get support. She had 40 messages, two offers of free services, you know, [00:37:00] it’s a beautiful community and I knew they would have her back.
So it’s also, you know, part of, it’s been creating the community around me so I can do this work and not carry the load on my own. Yeah.
Gissele overdub: Yeah. And what a beautiful example because you didn’t leave the person hanging. I mean, you honored your boundaries, which was important because you needed to put your own oxygen mask on.
But you also said. Here’s this other offer of love where these other people, other beings can be there for you. So I think that’s, that’s incredible. And it reminds me, you’ve been talking a lot about boundaries. One of the things I observed really is people, you know, you use the analogy of a lighthouse.
I like to actually use the analogy of a boat, you know, like people often think that way. If you see someone drowning and you’re on a boat that they need to jump in the water with them and suffer with them. And so, and they’re only happy if the other person’s happy, or if the other person’s doing okay.
But it’s how, how can you get, how can you change your relationship with suffering and observing [00:38:00] people suffering in a way that you stay on the boat and you can give them a helping hand, but they can choose not to get on the boat. They can choose not to not to accept your help. And that’s okay. Able to still.
And what I say is hold a vision of them as they would want to be seen loving, compassionate, thriving, abundant, healthy, all of those things. I can hold that vision for them, extend a hand if they need it, but if they’re not willing to take it, I’m not choosing to go in the water with them. and to me, that’s a definition of compassion.
How has compassion, especially for yourself, Helped you get to where you are today.
Geraldine: So one of the ways I love that example, by the way, the boats, I will be, I’ll be pinching that line again. Oh yeah. Yeah. You just do, don’t you? Like I’ll grab that metaphor.
Gissele overdub: If it helps people who cares. Like, you know, I don’t even know where I got that from.
I use other people’s analogies all the [00:39:00] time.
Geraldine: One of the things that’s really helped me with compassion is to really accept that we are all divine beings having a human experience and here to learn her own lessons.
And that spirit has shown me time and time again, that. The people who are going through really awful things in other parts of the world are doing deep learning that will expand the universe, and to honor them for doing that learning, but I can’t do it for them, and I can’t take that away, but they, they’ve chosen on a soul level, they might not know it on a human level, but on a soul level to, to experience that because their soul needed to learn something, and I honor that.
And if I’m inspired to take some action, Start up a food bank, something like that. Great. But you’ve got to take that action from a love, not from a fear. And there’s a big difference there. But one of the things that helps me to really get this in my head is I think of life as a computer game. And everybody’s got their own avatars, [00:40:00] but everybody’s also got their own missions.
So the game you’re playing is the different game from what I’m playing and what I need to come here and learn, what my mission is may be different to yours and we may have different ways we need to get there. So it just allows me to be like, Oh, okay, I’m going to let you do you because I don’t know what computer game you’re actually playing.
Yours could be quite different from mine and that’s okay. And I really, I love to. Dive into this inside out understanding of, of realizing that we’re all living in the experience of our thinking, not our circumstance. So every individual is experiencing the world differently. They’re living in a completely different world anyway.
So my understanding of the world is coming through my thinking and their understanding of the world is coming through theirs and it may be very different. And you can see some people’s thinking, bless. You just think, Oh my God, what are you living in? You know, you know, when I get trolled by people online and I just think, Oh my goodness, you’re obviously living in some very [00:41:00] unpleasant thinking and it’s spilling out, but when you think of this as a computer game and that everybody’s on their own mission, it kind of just lets you know that, okay, I need to focus on playing my bit and let them.
Play their bit and it, and it, and it really helps me to just know where I need to focus my energy and let people get on with their learning.
Gissele overdub: Yeah. And I think, sorry, go ahead.
Geraldine: No, I just think you will get inspired. They’ll be inspired because people say, well, is this happening? I have to do something. Okay.
Get really still really connect with your wisdom rather than going, I have to do something and then running off because actually what you’re doing is. Acting out fear and you won’t see things clearly. It’s like having a dark cloud around you and I always say it’s like sending a mechanic into a, you know, into a garage with the lights switched off.
They’re going to make a few mistakes. Turn the lights off first, get your vibration up, get you seen clearly and then. And see what action feels right. [00:42:00]
Gissele overdub: Yeah, I completely agree. I think what you said was so spot on. I think so often we move to action and it comes from a place of fear or it comes from a place of pity, which is still low vibration.
It’s still like, you know, I think I’m above you. I think I’m better. I think that and so. I listened to this guy called Oh, what’s his name? Paul Selig. And he says, when we, when we think we’re above somebody, we’re actually below them. I always have that in my head when we think we’re above somebody, we’re actually below
Geraldine: them.
Your vibration, your consciousness.
Gissele overdub: I love that. It always cracks me up whenever I catch myself, And so, yeah, so often we have that, that, that. Desire to assist from that place of fear or pity or so a low vibration. And, you know, I love also what you said is we don’t often have an expanded view of what’s really going on.
And as I sort of began expanding my consciousness, [00:43:00] I realized how topsy turvy this world is. Like, in the sense, the things we worship, it’s like it’s all sort of like. Upside down, right?
And so when you start to think about things from a more expanded viewpoint, like you said, I have no idea what somebody’s life journey is about or what they chose or why they chose to experience something. So me trying to interfere. It’s not, it’s not, might not be in their best interest or mine.
No. When you tap in and go to that more expanded or ask for a more expanded perspective and say, you know, I don’t really understand this. This is triggering me, so I’m gonna deal with that part of myself. How can I be of love? In support to this person and then just wait, maybe it’s nothing. Maybe it’s just holding that.
I love holding the vision of people and how they would want to be seen and how they could. I don’t like to think of people as like, this is who they are. And this is who they’re [00:44:00] always going to be. Like, I would rather hold a vision of. Okay, this is whom they’re reflecting back to me right now. Mm-Hmm. But what if they could be more, what if they could be healed?
Happy, joyful, abundant. Yeah. And how could it maybe, maybe the best, the most only thing I can do is hold that space so that they can either align with it easily. Or it’s there for them if they choose, right?
Geraldine: Yeah, I think it’s, I find the more and more I connect with my spirituality and guidance that’s come through, it’s more and more, I need to let go of judgment.
Judgment of myself and of other people. And get really comfortable with mystery and not knowing. You know, like Through COVID, I would get people so certain you should be wearing a mask. No, you shouldn’t be wearing a mask. And do you know where I sat? I don’t know. If it feels right for me that day to wear one, I will.
If it doesn’t feel right another day, [00:45:00] I won’t. And I’m going to trust you that you have your wisdom and will be guided by your wisdom. And I, I didn’t, you know, I still don’t think we’ll know a full heartedly what really caused it or what was the right way to handle it until 50 years down the line. And even then, are we really going to know?
So I just, I find one of the things that’s brought me the greatest peace. It’s just letting go of the need to know and the need to be right. And I’ve just, I don’t hold very strong opinions on much these days. This is the odd thing. But most, most things I’m just, I’m, I’m willing to be really open minded about it and, and just let wisdom.
Guide me and trust the other people’s wisdom and their wisdom may be different like I’ve had a I was vegan for a while I’ve always been vegetarian and but I’m not going to judge somebody who eats meat That may be part of their life lesson. They’re learning. [00:46:00] I don’t know It may be part of my life lesson not to I don’t know and I’m but what feels right to me It’s not to eat meat but I am not going to tell somebody else what they should and shouldn’t be doing because I am not in their computer game.
I’m in mine. So I’m going to let you play yours. And, and yeah, and even when you see like, you know, there can be certain political leaders, you just think, Oh my God, what are they doing? Certainly in England, we’ve got a lot of those right now. And you just. But a part of me thinks, well, are they here to, and to aggravate, to cause change?
I have to have some faith that the universe has got us, that we’re, we hopefully, if we can keep a high frequency, let go of judgment, move towards compassion and love, we will eventually start moving in the right direction. And all I can do rather than judging that politician or getting very angry about it is hold, like you say, hold that space of love, try and see the divinity in everybody.
Then [00:47:00] nobody is special, but we’re all unique. There is the little spark. Some people are more connected to it than others. And just, just try and stay in that space of, I’m not gonna focus on your stuff because I need to focus on mine. And the more people that did that, I think the world would be much more peaceful.
The
Gissele overdub: world would be different, yeah. But we’re so uncomfortable with the unknown, aren’t we? because it takes trust and courage, right? There’s been so many times in my life when I wasn’t in my trusting mode. Where even the inner guidance that I got, I was like, what? Cause I was like, ah, okay.
So I’m being guided to do this. In my mind saying, what the hell are you doing? Like, shouldn’t it be? How is this going to happen? I, you, you know, you hear your dreams over here. How are you even going to get there? And it’s like, wow, like, you know, but [00:48:00] every time I trusted it always worked out always a hundred percent, a hundred percent.
100 percent response rate. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It wasn’t enough.
Geraldine: I know.
Gissele overdub: It’s crazy. It’s crazy. Isn’t it? Like when you think about what I think back, I’m like, that’s so crazy. Every time I chose to trust and step in trust and follow my heart. It always worked out so beautifully. And yet I always felt when push came to shove, I had to control, I had to go back to that because we are so used to knowing everything.
You want to immediate information. You want to know the weather. Yeah, exactly. And so I think it’s, that is really stepping into your trust and in your knowingness, like not belief knowingness into your inner knowingness that comes with the, all of us are. Right. And instead of we’re so used to getting external wisdom, [00:49:00] like from other people, tell me what to do.
Tell me what I believe to me that really what you’re inviting people to do really is go back to, you know, you got to go back to your home base and figure out, okay, what’s my heart, what’s my Right. Right. What is that aspect of myself telling me because that’s really the only way that we’re going to get to finish our missions and understand the learnings that each of us have, right?
Geraldine: one thing I also do is I teach people. To connect with spirit guides and connect with their own inner divinity. So I have a circle, we meet twice a month and I’m only, I always say it’s for beginners because what I want to do is just give you that firm foundation to connect with spirit through love because some people play around with it and end up drawing different things in that are not loving.
So I always try and give people that firm foundation in love, but why also, what I’m trying to do is. Make you realize you are a divine being and that you are connected to a loving energy. You are part of that energy and there is wisdom. And my [00:50:00] experience of that is I have spirit guides around me too.
And so I get people to just connect with that. And then if they want to go and explore shamanism, they want to go and explore angels, or they want to do Reiki or, or go into like. Fun, you know, like rituals and witchcraft, that’s fine. Like you go and expand and go and do it as long as you know, at the end of the day, that you are part of a loving energy and you, and it’s got your back in whichever form that takes for you.
Great. I’m happy. I’m done. So I would say it’s, it’s quite, you know, I’m, I’m not somebody who’s going to introduce you to massive rituals and how to do cards in really fancy ways. I’m going to teach you the basics, but at the end of the day, one thing that COVID taught us is, you know, your yoga classes, your, you know, crystals, you could suddenly not be able to get hold of.
And you, you don’t need any of that. It’s wonderful. I love it all. What you need to know is that you are the divine.
Gissele overdub: Yeah. You are. [00:51:00] You are the one now. I’m really exploring that the, we are the God self, right? Yes. That, that we are like, the God-self. The God-self is within and it’s not out there that some God in the sky, whereas it’s, it’s us.
It’s really us. And so we have the ability and the power to create. Whatever we desire in a way that harms no one and in a way that uplifts like everyone, right. To be the lighthouse, like you were saying. Yeah.
Geraldine: It comes through a lot in readings that I get that the spirit is saying, you’re looking in the wrong direction.
Stop looking externally. Don’t look at gurus and all this kind of stuff. You go, go inward. It’s there.
Gissele overdub: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So two more questions. In this season, we’re asking all of our guests what their definition of unconditional love is. Oh, I love that. What a
Geraldine: good question. Because obviously that’s the thing, that most of my clients haven’t had [00:52:00] or certainly not had from their mothers.
And what I try and help them to bring to themselves through their inner divinity and what I find spirit guides are incredibly good at helping you because they are, When you connect with spirit and you connect with the inner divinity, you connect with an energy of love that is, is not an emotion that comes and goes.
It’s a state of being, it’s a really pure love. And I kind of think that’s what unconditional love, unconditional love is accepting. It’s just pure acceptance of everything. The good. The bad, the ugly, you know, and you, you naturally, you would hope you would have that most of the time with your children that you just accept when they have their mood swings, you accept, you know, that they’re going to have good days, bad days, and you love them because of it.
Not despite it. But because of it, and sadly that’s not always able to happen because of wounds that we carry. [00:53:00] But if you want to really love your own children with a deep unconditional love, you have to start with you. You have to love yourself unconditionally. You can only love other people as much as you love yourself.
And you can feel this deep love for your children, but trust me, once you start really loving yourself, that love gets even deeper and even more beautiful. It’s, it really is. You have to start with yourself. You have to really love yourself. And, and yeah. And that unconditional love for yourself is accept.
It’s not thinking I’m the big, I am, I’m the best thing ever. It’s having that patience, tenderness, and kindness. For yourself, you know, accepting your shadows, your quirky sides, your annoying habits, you know, those things that you, that you do that you would have had a go at yourself for before, just accepting.
I am terrible for leaving things in places. I will walk out of a [00:54:00] restaurant and my husband scans the room like what she left this time. And once upon a time, I would have berated myself for it. Really said horrible things to myself. Whereas now I’m like. Bless me. I’ve done it again. Yeah.
Gissele overdub: Yeah. It’s so funny.
I also realized how I had changed my relationship with myself when I started, I would actually get into fits of laughter over something, not just doing dumb things, but putting myself in circumstances where I was like, when I look back in my life and I was like, Things I had done that I would beat myself up for now, it makes me laugh.
It’s like, I don’t know where this laugh comes from. It just thinks like, Oh, it’s like you say in the video game. You’re like, Oh, okay. Isn’t that funny. Isn’t that funny. How I did that. Isn’t that funny. Now that I, all my quirks and annoying things, they actually make me laugh, which is
Geraldine: sign of healing. It’s a real client’s clear sign of healing.
I remember a point where I knew I would, I was starting to forgive my mom was starting to heal because I was [00:55:00] sharing stories of things she did and was just laughing my socks off. You know, like walking into my house and just saying, well, I lost all and I just found it hilarious. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s a real shine sign of being able to move on.
And and accept. So yeah, laughter is a good one.
Gissele overdub: Yeah, that’s a good one. Yeah. I can you share people where they can come work with you? What’s your website? Where can people find you on social media and so
Geraldine: on? Yeah, I’m I’m very easy to find. So I am on. I’m on TikTok. I’m on Instagram. I’m on Facebook. I’m on LinkedIn.
I generally just search Geraldine Crane. You will generally find me. My website is www. geraldinecrane.com. And there’s links to all my social media from there as well. So yeah, come find me. I have a beautiful group for women who’ve experienced a toxic relationship and want to heal with a spiritual.
connection. And it’s called serene, spiritual and [00:56:00] empowered. It’s healing mother wounds with the love of the universe. It’s a really beautiful group. The women in that just fantastic, but yeah, you can find out my, my group work and my one to one works all there. So
Gissele overdub: thank you. Thank you so much for being with us today and thank you for this amazing conversation.
I really, really enjoyed everything that we chatted about today and please join us for another episode of the loving compassion podcast with Giselle. Thank you.